Eli tapped his foot against the floor impatiently, his arms crossed. He, Arelyth, Ziphos, Yashy, and Narroth stood in a small, otherwise empty room in a building in Vith Honeth, a relatively large central Kurian city. It was two day's journey from Ras Borune, the mercenary group's base of operations in Kuriar. They had received an anonymous letter asking them to come to this specific building, that someone had a job for them and would pay well, and also to come prepared. Eli had taken that to mean "prepared for battle", and so had ordered the group he took with him to suit up in whatever their preferred combat gear was. Eli himself wore gleaming, well kept steel chainmail, a relic of when he was still Dragonwatch. He didn't carry a sword, able to summon one on the fly when needed.

When they had entered the building, a scrawny man wearing expensive black clothes had shown them to this room and then left, ordering them to wait here. That was almost half an hour ago. Eli hoped this job would pay well, for all the journey and wait they had to put with. He wasn't a patient man.

Arelyth jumped when the door suddenly opened. She had been organizing, for seemingly the millionth time, her folder of documents and manuscripts, ranging from a sheet detailing the group's expenses from the past month to a list of each mercenary's fighting style and Words known. She looked up to see who entered. It was a moderately fat man who wore slightly ragged looking noble clothes. He looked them over with an obviously false air of condescension and confidence, and said. "I guess you'll do. Follow me."

"I hope that whatever this is, it's worth the time. This place has proven far to lively for my taste." Narroth was known for his obsession with corpses. Often, he would spend hours after a fight looking over the fallen. Finding every detail about them. When he wasn't examining bodies, he was making them in battle, using his own blood as a blade when striking at his enemies.

Yashy wore what she always wore, not liking to be held down by heavy armor. She enjoyed freedom of movement, and the speed that freedom allowed her. She followed the man, along with the rest of the group, looking around as she went. She glanced at Narroth, an expression of boredom on her face. It was apparent that she didn't care too much if it was worth it. After all, it's in her blood to want to wander.

The fat man took them down a long hallway, clearly trying to hide nervousness. He kept glancing behind him at the group, as if paranoid they would attack him or leave. At the end of the hallway was a door. The man opened it and stepped inside, unnecessarily motioning for them to continue following him.

The door opened into a large room with a table with maps all over it and chair in the center, which was otherwise bare besides a bed and a decent sized chest. The scrawny man from earlier stood silently by the chest. The man looked at them, finally, reluctantly dropping his confident facade. "You weren't followed, were you?" He asked nervously. "I'm confident we weren't." Arelyth told him. "Then I...I guess I should explain the job now.""Yes." Eli said dryly.

"I'm a...a former slaver, you see. I wasn't very, uh, reputable, and I made a few enemies. And now they...they put out a bounty on my head. A big one. My name is Dysi Anatoli."

Eli raised an eyebrow. He whistled. "Some people are willing to pay three thousand imperial gold crowns for your life, Dysi." He said. "We've had three people approach us to hire us to track you down, but I told them we're a mercenary group, not a pack of assassins."

Arelyth's eyes widened. "Six thousand imperial gold crowns? That's more than..." She rifled through her folder for a moment and retrieved a sheet of paper, looking over it. "That's more than we make, on average, in roughly four hundred and thirty days."

"What exactly do you need, and how long term is this?" Eli said quickly, getting down to business.

"I just need an escort to Edrephos. I have friends there who can protect me virtually indefinitely, but I can't get there alone." Dysi said. "The money is in the chest behind me. I can send another message to your headquarters telling where it is and to come pick it up if you agree. Then, we can leave on the morrow."

"It's a shame really. You'd be more interesting dead. But I digress. If Eli says we're to protect you, than so be it. In the mean time though, I'm sure that more than a few bounty hunters will be trying to get at you. I'll just have my fun with them once their hearts stop." Narroth's voice was low and ominous. The look in his eye clearly suggested he wouldn't be too sad if the mission was a failure, but that's not to say he'd intentionally fail.

"...Alright." Yashy looked obviously irritated- she wasn't a fan of escort missions- usually, the client was dead weight. Add to that the fact that this escort was scum in her eyes, and she wasn't too pleased. But she knew that money meant a lot to the group, as a whole, and there wasn't much sympathy for her nomadic tendencies. Plus, she felt that she owed them. She contented herself with the fact that, at least, she was away from their "base". Staying in one place too long made her restless.

"May we get going? This place smells like something died here." She smirked at Narroth, teasing a moment before walking.

"Oh, I noticed that immediately, but it's nothing more than a simple rat that got stuck in a hole about a month ago. You can tell by the state and pungentness of the scent of decay. Anyway, I agree. Let's get this over with."

Dysi's eyes widened noticeably at Narroth's comments, but Arelyth waved it off. "Don't mind Narroth. He's not as...sadistic as he sounds. I agree, we should get going soon.""Hold one moment." Ziphos spoke up. "We haven't made sure that there's exactly six thousand crowns in the chest, yet.""Oh! Of course." Arelyth said. "Allow me." She pulled out a quill pen and piece of paper and walked up to the chest, opening it. It was filled to the brim with gold coins. "Cleos." She spoke firmly. At her Word, the coins began to rise out of the chest, floating through the air before forming neat stacks of crowns, row by row, in the chest. Arelyth counted each one, marking and scribbling on her paper as she made sure everything was in order. After a few moments of this, when every single crown was nicely stacked in the container, she finally said. "Done. He's telling the truth, there's exactly six thousand genuine imperial gold crowns here."

"Knowing the apparent value of this man's corpes, I was certain he's keep his end of the bargin. Although the reaffirmation does help. Anyway, we've got quite the trek ahead of us. I'm certain you're prepared to cover expenses as well? I mean, most escort assignments do given the fact that you can't expect us to dip into our own pocket for it. If we did, we'd just break even. Oh, and I'll want the bones that were burred outside. They seemed fine specimens at least fifty years old." Narroth recognized a grave, even if it wasn't labeled as one.

Yashy looked exasperated by Narroth's request. She looked over the group. A sense of duty kept her there, and she hadn't grown too close to any of them in her time with them. Though, she hadn't grown close to anyone in a long time... She looked up, and thought of her homeland. Part of her longed to return. Too bad she was banned. She sighed, giving their escort a tired glance before turning her eyes back to the exit.

"Of course I will cover expe-" Dysi started to say. "Wait, bones...? There are no bones buried outside, as far as I know. And besides, I...Do not own this building, so I cannot...grant them to you regardless."Eli waved it off. "It's fine. I assume you have rooms at an Inn prepared for us?""I always make sure to be prepared." Dysi said mildly. "Then, if there's nothing else...?"

"Well damn." Narroth started his way out the door. "Well, if you're paying to be escorted, then lead us to that inn you rented."

Narroth lost a lot of his interest in living beings when he was locked in that crypt. In reality, he joined the mercenary group so he could study bodies from fights. He had enough assets to live on his own fine. But the town was too quiet. He studied the only crypt in it to death. And the people there were very healthy.

Yashy followed the group, still deep in thought. She had joined the group a bit over a year ago.

Yashy was covered in ashes, her voice incredibly hoarse, and her eyes puffy from crying the day she met the group. She had walked until she'd collapsed, and that happened to be in the town square of the town the group had been in. And they had saved her life by taking her into their group, and she didn't know how to repay it by other than being the best teammate she could be.